01 / Integrity
We quote what we saw
Every price is based on the ground we walked. On earthworks the scope often changes once you open the topsoil. You hear about it the same day.
Who We Are
You talk to the person digging.
Covenant Earth Works is owner-operated out of Calgary, Alberta. Two operators, a small crew, and machines maintained in-house. Nobody here is dispatching your job to somebody else's crew.
The Operators
Barry Porter
& Gerald Tchio
Two operators covering both halves of the work. Barry runs the earthworks. Gerald runs demolition, asbestos and mould remediation.
Barry Porter has twenty-five years across the construction and logging industries. Twenty in construction, and five working with logging equipment, demolition, grading and operations. Excavation, heavy equipment, grading and logging operations are the same job to him in different terrain. A logging cut reads the same as a site cut.
Gerald N. Tchio is a construction subcontractor working in interior demolition, complete building demolition, asbestos removal, mould remediation and foundation excavation. He works across demolition projects with the focus on safe method, quality workmanship and finishing inside the schedule.
Both quote their own work and run machines on it. That shapes what gets flagged: the undercut that will cost more later, the base course that won't compact in cold weather, the drainage that has to go in now or nowhere.
Covenant means a promise. When we tell a customer something, we keep my word, and we dont cut corners to do it.
Barry Porter & Gerald Tchio, Operators
Demolition & Hazardous Materials
Gerald Tchio
Interior and complete building demolition, asbestos removal, mould remediation and foundation excavation.
Asbestos, mould and demolition are sequenced differently from earthworks. Material has to be identified before it is disturbed, contained while it comes out, and proven clear before excavation starts. That sequencing is the whole job.
Gerald runs that work end to end, so a demolition scope and the excavation that follows it sit with the same crew. The basement dig after a strip-out does not get handed to a different crew who has never seen the structure.
By the Numbers
Where we are today.
Years in the trade
25
Construction machines
25
Logging machines
20
Machines owned total
45
Twenty years of that experience is construction; the other five is logging equipment, demolition, grading and operations.
How We Work
Four things we don't
negotiate on.
02 / Safety
Nobody gets rushed
The schedule never outranks a safe method. If the only way to hit a date is to cut a slope we don't like, we take the extra day and tell you why.
03 / Precision
Grade to spec, not to feel
Machine control where it pays, hand-finished detail where it matters. Checked against design elevation rather than judged by eye from the cab.
04 / Reliability
Show up, finish it
Small contractor, finite crew, so we don't overcommit to more jobs at once than we can staff properly. A date we can hit beats a date we have to walk back.
Why It Matters
Small is not the
same as unqualified.
There is a version of this business where the owner sells, a middle layer interprets and a crew executes without ever meeting the person who signed the quote. Every decision takes a day longer. Every problem gets somebody else's problem on the way through.
Going owner-operated is a deliberate trade. It means the company only grows as fast as the crew does, and it means we say no to work we're not right for. In exchange, the person answering your phone knows your job, the decision on site gets made on the spot, and the standard doesn't drift between the first hour and the last.
For a homeowner with one driveway, that's the difference between a clean job and a week of chasing. For a developer with a season's schedule, it's the difference between a crew that absorbs a surprise and one that stops.
Owner-operated: on site in person
Equipment
Machines, and the people
who run them.
John Deere 223 excavator, maintained in-house. When something goes down mid-cut, the fix is a trailer ride away, not a rental invoice.
Excavators & backhoes
Trenching, selective excavation, loading and finish work. Hydraulic and backhoe for the tight spots.
Dozers
Bulk push, rough cut, stripping and pushing material where trucks can't profitably run.
Motor graders
Subgrade and base shaping, shoulder pull-back, and the finish grade that ties a road together.
Haul units
Trucked material on and off site, including overburden haul-away and delivered aggregate.
Skid steers & compacts
Tight-access grading, backfill, detail work and small-site cleanup where the big iron won't fit.
Get In Touch
Come and see the ground.
If the job is within reach we'll walk it before quoting. Most of the wrong estimates in this trade come from never standing on the site.